


Are You Lost?

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: Caught In All, The Stars Are Hiding [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, Illustrated (soon), Inner Dialogue, Insomnia, Interspecies Awkwardness, Intoxication, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, My First Work in This Fandom, One-Sided Attraction, Out of Character I Guess?, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prose Poem, Stream of Consciousness, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 20:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10884306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: A station that never really sleeps, a mind for whom memories are as good as present reality, and an empty bottle ofkanarleave Garak in a hellish place. As with so many things, he's determined to see it through alone.Fortunately for him, and despite the gyre widening, a good doctor thinks otherwise.Or: "You, my friend, remind me of someone that I used to know. You've got his scars, you wear the same clothes—"





	Are You Lost?

**Author's Note:**

> Ughhhh. Something other than [Undertale fanfics](http://archiveofourown.org/series/629216) has utterly kicked my butt.
> 
> Long story short is that somehow by the blessings of the Gods I stumbled upon a used copy of Andrew Robinson's _A Stitch In Time_ for about three bucks at a secondhand bookstore. This prompted me: 1) to squee (silently) in public, because I'd never been able to find an affordable copy and didn't think I ever would, and 2) to realize how daggum much I love DS9, and the relationship between Dr. Bashir and Garak in particular.
> 
> (Granted, I forgot how much I love Garak anyway; Robinson's book was a lovely reminder.)
> 
> This having been said, I am severely rusty on my DS9, and my copy of _ASIT_ is now with a coworker, but I felt the urge to write . . . something. I won't even attempt to say this is anywhere near canon-compliant because I can tell you that it's not. I have no idea when this happens, nor do I particularly care; I parked myself at my laptop over the course of a few days' spare time and this weird thing popped out.
> 
> I don't know. Maybe circa season seven-ish? Honestly, I never really cared much for how Ezri apparently helped Garak (nor Dr. Bashir's reaction to Garak's internal conflict)—so maybe this is my own little headcanon redo of that situation.
> 
> Because I usually say "Such-and-such song inspired me!" . . . have some of Amber Run's ["Insomniac"](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/amberrun/insomniac.html):  
> "You, my friend,  
> Remind me of someone that I used to know.  
> You've got his eyes, you've got his shadow.  
> When did you become the kind of man to dance at funerals?
> 
> Are you lost?
> 
> Does it feel like you gave it all away?  
> Does it feel like it was barely yesterday?  
> Do the promises you make feel harder to keep?  
> Are you losing any sleep? Are you losing any sleep?
> 
> You, my friend,  
> Remind me of someone that I used to know.  
> You've got his scars, you wear the same clothes.  
> When did you become the kind of man to live in dark roads?
> 
> Are you lost?"
> 
> Thoughts/reviews/comments'n'critiques are all welcome and do this writer good. I hope you enjoy. <3

The station has never been silent, but silent it seems now, seems most nights now, when the clamor on the Promenade has faded, and even Quark sends the last reeling patrons and holosuite clientele away. The silence is thick, thicker than the walls which cloister them and shield them all from a vacuum and sure death; the silence closes in, an unseen thing, a monster of the mind to stifle his breath and ensnare him.

He's explained, more than once, to a curious Dr. Bashir that neither time nor memory are linear affairs for the Cardassian mind: the silence and weight of the station in the dead of night like this are that—just that and then the closet walls closed-in on a frightened child and everything between—the weight of rubble cast down upon him, too, years and years later—each moment swayed and blurred into finite iterations, each waxing more sharply than the next.

His mind aches with the memory of the wire, the ghost of euphoric rapture greater than several glasses of _kanar_ or some post-coital haze. Still—far better a thing, these days, to have a clear head and a mind unfettered by at least that crutch (though _kanar_ itself is yet a sweet ambrosia).

Or so Garak tells himself, pacing through the cold, cold corridors: the fierce teeth against his flesh drive him onwards, down one hallway, then another, circling again, again, inevitably towards the Promenade, not so much because his shop awaits with work, nor even because his own quarters (suitably warm, he'll grant, though the artificiality leaves much to be desired) have themselves seemed as much a prison as of late as—

Well.

He stops, listens for a moment, walks on, silently, Mila-the- _regnar_ 's lessons serving him well, as so often they have. A member of Odo's security force passes by, within easy reaching distance, but their eyes rake over a shadow, think it nothing more, move on.

To his own and to the inhabitants of the station, ah, he's just that: a shadow. Something easily looked over. Hated, perhaps, hated, yes, but hasn't he in the last years quietly woven for himself such a persona that even the hatred has dulled? And so he's hated now for _what_ he is—which is to say, Cardassian—but not for _who_ : insofar as anyone's concerned, barring the upper echelons of the Federation crew, he's merely plain and simple Garak: the plump and kind-faced tailor, ever-smiling, gracious, a quiet genius with his work who strikes a fair bargain and has a quick turnaround.

Ah.

What they don't know . . .

And certainly what even the Federation and its kith don't know . . .

Sometimes, though, for nights as this he wanders, slips to shadows, keeps himself ubiquitous: scarcely do most know just how much he listens, keeps tucked within his mind. Secrets, for secrets are his currency.

Another set of steps reach him, ones he's long since come to recognize. The good doctor's, of course, and a smile plays against his lips, despite himself, despite the frayed-worried-labyrinthine-mind playing tricks on him tonight, memory / reality distorted until it takes on a distinct tincture of _surreal_.

That or the bottle of _kanar_ Quark so graciously gave him.

Graciously—as if the stubborn-pride-struck self-destruction of his people warrants the gifting of a bottle.

Or the consumption of said bottle.

Ah. Pathetic.

The shadow shifts, and Garak stumbles, blinded with the station's sway and the air suddenly thick against his throat, sharp-thick and chilled, and his hands reach for a wall on which to catch himself because it doesn't feel now like his own legs can bear him, or even his own strength of will—the raw, grim, indomitable force as has carried him through this long exile—the kernel of the grace and charm and taciturn resourcefulness, brutal if need be—

"Garak?"

The familiar step draws near, echoes, doubled and redoubled; Garak shakes his head, loathe to think of when there _was_ —

A hand on his shoulder, broad-fingered, splayed against the flesh and carefully avoiding there the ridges—the doctor's gathered well enough that such a place is sensitive—and then the dark beast of the station is swallowed up, the whole of it, by a pair of deep-bright eyes. But the eyes are shadowed, and the face is shadowed, and Garak remembers now (as always, a constant thread throughout his mind, constant it's been since the war has crept across the quadrant . . .) that the smile there against those lips is not a boyish smile anymore.

"Are you alright?"

Strange, the concern in that voice. Haven't they been growing distant?

Distant, ah, but what else has brought him here tonight? What else has drawn these steps to him when—

"Doctor."

Smooth, the syllables, slid against his teeth (and in the back of his mind, ah, too, there is what he'd truly call the man—not some title woven from the universal translator—ah, no, but a rasping sound, hiss-iss, a song, a graveled song of ages . . .) But for all that, the word is soft, is eloquent; they could be meeting over lunch, for all this is, barring the startling flood of emotion in Dr. Bashir's voice. The same questions, always, the ones he hates, the ones which remind him of this—of his moments of weakness—(one after another, closet-walls / caved walls / crawlspace—again they wash over him—again he forces himself to breathe, to breathe . . .)

"I am quite fine, Doctor. But I might ask you the same."

A wry twisting of the lips; Dr. Bashir tilts his head. "Why I'm walking the corridors at night? Yes. Well. One of Odo's security personnel said they saw you wandering about the Promenade. Obviously . . ."

"It seems suspicious, does it not?" Garak spreads his hands, in so doing loosing himself from the doctor's touch, but there's no shaking free of that insistent gaze—nor the sudden twisting biting shame that he'd not been able to disappear—

The _kanar_ —yes—blame that—blame that sole thing and not the sum of everything that's been tormenting him—

"Garak. It wasn't for distrust. It was because . . ." Dr. Bashir closes his eyes a moment, and there is no smile now. What could Garak know but what that savant sees when he looks at him— "Garak, please. It's far too late to be out and about like this. Come on. You need to rest."

"I can assure you that I'm—"

"No." Firmly, now; those slender healer's hands grasp at his arms (again carefully avoiding the ridges running there), guiding him; only then does Garak realize just how distant his body feels from itself, he from himself—the steps hardly seem his own. Not even in the euphoria of the wire had he felt so much a stranger—nor when losing himself to the sand and the stones, with his classmates or simply Mila-the- _regnar_ —

That's what it is, that's what it is: there are beings among whom to blend in on this forsaken station, ah, but there is no place to really

hide

And then he doesn't quite know what he knows, and fears that there was more to that whole bottle of _kanar_ than Quark himself had known: yes, no more can he melt into shadows, at least not while half-drunk, and hardly is his body that of a young male's anymore—but—

Dr. Bashir, the good man, however one so measures goodness—and Garak can find no measure satisfactory—guides him back along the path he took, albeit far less labyrinthine, and then the whoosh of the door and the warm wall of heat washes over him—artificial heat—recycled exhalations and a lingering staleness—but still, but still, it welcomes him. He does not realize just how much he sinks into the room until it registers that the doctor's kneeling there beside him, brow a-furrowed, worried, trying to catch a tricorder reading, tossing the instrument aside, brushing lithe fingers there against the Cardassian's cheek.

Garak can't help but smile now. The doctor forsaking his fancy technology for this, for a touch, for intuition. It's rather Cardassian of him, really—a thing Garak understands. There are moments when two beings can read each other, subtly, moments which are as intimate as anything shared between lovers or brothers or, ah, tortured and torturer: his ability to craft those moments of his own accord were rather a source of pride, while serving in the Order, but now . . . ah . . . now there's a kind of rapture to it . . . not surrender, no, but something else . . . the culmination of their tested and contested wills, perhaps . . . and how sad that is . . . how many other ways has he construed this moment, hoped for it, lusted after it . . .

Dr. Bashir is speaking and the words fall like rain and he isn't sure what drops he hears amongst the chorus.

Then:

"I don't think you should be alone."

Do the fingers really linger there against his temple where beneath the topographic map, the ridges, cartilage and bone and scale, the pulse beats high? Or does his _kanar_ -thickened mind merely cast it as an illusion? (And anyway, if the doctor _were_ to stay the night—ah—no, it most certainly would not be like this. Not this.)

Some impulse, some kindling of regathered pride, forces weary limbs to stand—to sway, but stand—and then, for the first time in the night, the first time since he's felt the echoed ghost of the wire, the old yearning, when he uncorked the bottle of _kanar_ and ended up throwing the glass against the wall and saying to hell with all of it—and when the station in the silence had at last, at last, in his most vulnerable moment—in the lucid dream of a drunken Cardassian trying to beguile himself into believing that he was doing _good_ , that he, cold-blooded murderer and now murderer by-proxy—when the station began closing in—

"Garak!"

The syllables are sharp, a reminder (as always there is) that the station is not really Cardassian, not anymore, for the name is not given its due cadence by a foreign tongue and universal translator. And Garak wonders, not for the first time, if in the throes of withdrawal from the wire he didn't _mean_ it—at least, part of it—his hatred for the doctor true: on some level, true—

But not for its own sake, the hatred.

Nor for how his name falls from said foreign tongue.

Again cold fingers feel his temple, fretting at the pulse, drop with a dancer's grace to catch his hand—a shaking hand—would that the doctor knew just what Garak's hands have wrought. Perhaps those unknowns are the definitive distance between them now. What had been alluring in a muddled time of peace is now a sharp-thing when it's the Cardassians they're up against, in league with the Dominion, and all those rumors Dr. Bashir had heard about Garak seem to have been resurrected—

Dimly and for another reason yet does he regret downing the entire bottle of _kanar_. Really. If he were anything but _this_ —

Shame pulls at him, if it does not surprise him: he remembers waiting, obsessively at that, among the bushes, in the park, on the streets, but for a glimpse of—

"Garak."

Softness, always softness there: his mind snaps back to the feeling of Dr. Bashir's hand, so fragile there within his own, a quiet thing, a coaxing, leading him in the direction of his bed.

And some old sense of propriety stops him, loosens his tongue, snares him from the waves of waking memories he'd almost rather forget.

"Doctor, really, this would be most . . . unsuitable."

They've stopped, the measured dance, the two of them almost side-by-side there at his bedside. Weariness, the _kanar_ 's crashing anti-climax, would have him throw himself down—he wouldn't sleep, of course—but oh—

The room spins and were it not for Dr. Bashir, he'd have spun with it.

"What would be unsuitable?" Dark eyes find his own. "One friend keeping vigil while another sleeps off the remnants of a night's troubled intoxication?"

A pause.

"Fine, then. If you don't trust me as your friend, Garak, then think of me as what you always call me. I'm your doctor—"

"No, you're a _Federation_ doctor, are you not? What of me have you learned that isn't for the first time, hm? Really, Federation intelligence is woefully lacking—you shouldn't have needed us to leave anything behind."

The onslaught, one of the last feeble defenses that he has, is waved off with that gentle hand, gentleness-cast-arrogance.

"—and I'm telling you that your pulse is erratic and your system seems to be in shock. Cold sweat, tremors, flashbacks—if you weren't freezing already I'd insist that you stay in the infirmary . . ."

Dr. Bashir moves away—taking with him his warmth—such that even the artificiality of the room waxes cold against Garak's flesh, heightened merely by the Human's absence. He almost laughs when a curse slips across the room, when again the doctor turns from the climate-control panel. There's a sheen of sweat against that olive brow, and only then does the Cardassian fully appreciate the fact that he's not strictly in uniform, though his nightclothes are modest.

"Hot as it is in here"—a wan smile, an apology for the implicit insult of the curse—"hot as those controls can make it, I'm still worried about your vitals, Garak."

"It . . . _is_ cold, Doctor."

"And I'm more worried about whatever drove you to drink a whole bottle of _kanar_."

Garak buries the secrets deeper, pulls another enigmatic smile.

"Surely you can understand that—"

Dr. Bashir sharply shakes his head. "No, Garak. There are things I never will."

Silence, then: silence save his thickened, wary breathing, and the softer exhalations of the Human, patient. There are things as need saying, and states of mind in which the worst thing to do is speak, and well enough Garak understands this, well enough the doctor does as well. And yet what a fragile thing it is—

"You're cold."

Not a question, but a question.

Garak reaches out to touch the doctor's shoulder, finds that a warm, warm hand is there to meet his own halfway and cradle it, rubbing at the knuckles and phalanges there as if to make a gift of the Human's body heat.

Until Dr. Bashir motions to the bed, perhaps too narrow in his estimation (but what does it matter?), begins pulling at his nightclothes (ones Garak finally recognizes as his own design). His gaze drops abruptly, though, cerulean eyes fallen to the floor: he's certainly neither modest not ascetic, but for far too long has he yearned for this—

And known that the good doctor has no idea whatsoever.

Which is in part why, on any other night but this, ah, he'd have so relished what's before him now, have made a game of it, have quietly untied the knotwork Humans so fervently tied around the spectrum of their sexuality (and species, for that matter) and—

A nervous laugh, when Garak stares at him at last, standing as he is, just shirtless now, all tawny skin sticky with the heat roiling about the room. It's the young Human in his turn who looks away. "Look. Uhm. I know . . . you're . . . If this were my idea of a proposition, God, it'd be juvenile, wouldn't it."

Not a question, but something important there, something as needs answering.

"Yes, Doctor, it would."

The truth, and implicit all the rest.

Garak steps closer, startled at Dr. Bashir's finesse: most of this was clumsy, really, and yet there's a calculated distance, a formality, and what a dance this is: doctor he may be and this his act of healing, but he's still offering to Garak one redeeming quality: that it be on his terms. That he, in whatever role he plays tonight, be in control. That he, struggling as he obviously is, make the choice—a choice—anything at all—

And once, and once, such sheer naïveté would have torn laughter from his lips: the doctor is not a child anymore but oh, there are moments yet when he seems so _young_.

"But of course, Doctor, that's not what this is."

Relief across the smooth cheeks, then, and betraying color there—

The Human's radiated heat soothes him, lends a steadiness to shaking hands as he likewise half-disrobes, pulls his slender, smooth-skinned friend into his arms—just that—just that, so the two of them may lay there in the stillness, the humid-thickened room, warm as artificiality can cast it, warmer still for Garak then with the small of Dr. Bashir's back cradling his belly, his chest pressed against those bony shoulderblades, chin nestled in that obsidian and temperamental hair.

"Sometimes," the doctor whispers, "we just need closeness. It doesn't need to be anything else—anything complicated. Someone to remind us that we're not alone."

"Such sentimentality, Doctor. Certainly not all species are of a kind as that. And unless you've forgotten, I _am_ —"

Exiled. Alone.

"But you've stopped shaking." Quiet triumph in the words, triumph beyond the Human's own discomfort at where he's found himself.

Nearness, and warmth, and semi-silence save their breathing, carried into cadence shared: little can Dr. Bashir know where Garak learned such things, or what solace now he takes in this. Just this. He'll ask no more of his friend tonight, except to trace the muscles of his shoulders gently, and find some measure of delusional safety in the simplicity of warmth from him. He's found it in other, unexpected places—why not this?

"You've stopped shaking." The sentiment, repeated; the sentiment now on lips grown soft with weariness, though of course neither Human nor Cardassian will find trust in one another, not this night, not enough for sleep.

"As have you, Doctor." Garak almost whispers, willing again for the translator to falter, for another wall to be so cast between the two of them, and in this moment for his friend to know him as he really is.


End file.
